Bob Stack, an international tax expert, explores the implications of the EU’s adoption of Pillar Two and the potential for streamlining overlapping policies. He also addresses the issues that the US faces in global tax policy with the upcoming elections.
The gap between statutory rates and average effective tax rates for personal income tax in the European Union varies significantly, affecting the efficiency and simplicity of the tax system.
32 min read
Taxes are on the ballot this November—not just in the sense that candidates at all levels are offering their visions for tax policy, but also in the literal sense that voters in some states will get to decide important questions about how their states raise revenue.
9 min read
While tax policy was almost nonexistent in the first debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, this episode will explore each candidate’s latest proposals in greater depth.
Supernormal profits are an important concept, but we should be wary of analysis that both defines supernormal profits very broadly and equates all supernormal profits with monopoly profits that can be easily taxed without negative economic effects.
23 min read
The sales tax is the second-largest source of state tax revenue and an important source of local tax revenue, but decades of base erosion threaten the tax’s share of overall revenue and have prompted years of countervailing rate increases.
72 min read
Lawmakers should consider compliance costs—not just tax liabilities—when evaluating reforms to business income taxation.
22 min read
When the government imposes a tariff, it may be trading jobs and production in one part of the economy for jobs in another part of the economy by increasing production costs for downstream industries.
6 min read
Dive into the highlights from the DNC as we break down Vice President Kamala Harris’s tax proposals and their potential impact on everyday families. What do higher taxes on businesses and the wealthy mean for working Americans?
Pillar Two risks creating a more complex and unfair international tax system. It is inadvertently fostering new, opaque, and complex forms of competition, and policymakers should consider alternative approaches to creating a fairer international tax environment.
4 min read
How does living abroad impact the taxes an American has to pay? Unlike most countries that tax based on residency, the US employs citizenship-based taxation, meaning Americans are taxed on their global income regardless of where they reside.
To encourage greater saving, the US federal income tax provides tax-neutral treatment to some types of saving through a variety of accounts. The type of tax treatment, contribution limits, withdrawal rules, and use cases for contributions all vary by account, leading to a complicated system for households to navigate.
11 min read
Not every change in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act simplified the tax code. However, the TCJA reduced compliance costs overall for individual filers, and allowing fundamental structural improvements to expire would make the tax code worse.
5 min read
Americans will spend more than 7.9 billion hours complying with IRS tax filing and reporting requirements in 2024. This is equal to 3.8 million full-time workers doing nothing but tax return paperwork—roughly equal to the population of Los Angeles.
7 min read
The global tax deal and Pillar Two are shaking up the tax landscape worldwide, introducing a web of complexity and confusion.
Next year, West Virginians will see an income tax cut thanks to revenue triggers in a 2023 law. The Mountain State joins 14 other states that have cut income taxes this year.
4 min read
While both President Biden and Vice President Harris aim their proposed tax hikes on businesses and high earners, key differences between their tax ideas in the past reveal where Harris may take her tax policy platform in the 2024 campaign.
6 min read
The aim of patent boxes is generally to encourage and attract local research and development (R&D) and to incentivize businesses to locate IP in the country. However, patent boxes can introduce another level of complexity to a tax system, and some recent research questions whether patent boxes are actually effective in driving innovation.
3 min read
Puerto Rico, a US territory with a limited ability to set its own tax policies, will be the first part of the US to be substantially affected by Pillar Two, the global tax agreement that seeks to establish a 15 percent minimum tax rate on corporate income.
17 min read
Retail delivery fees are an inefficient and ineffective way to close budget gaps, and lawmakers should consider other, more sound, policy options.
5 min read